American Horror Story Coven: ‘Head’ Review

I Called The Witch Doctor And This Is What She Head Said

My HEAD is still spinning from last night’s episode of American Horror Story! And now, we have to wait FOUR ENTIRE WEEKS until the next episode! That is WAY, WAYYY too long! You’re very lucky, Ryan Murphy, for casting Stevie Nicks herself because if she wasn’t going to be in the next episode, that would simply be TOO LONG of a wait. And while I’m on the subject of Stevie Nicks and before even getting to my review of last night’s awesome episode, the next episode (airing January 8th–sigh) is titled ‘The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks’. I cannot contain my excitement due to the epic awesomeness of having Stevie Nicks play HERSELF on AHS (and, one other note, she’s going to be making more than just one appearance)!

Of course, the wait is going to be even more excruciating after last night’s action-packed episode, simply titled ‘Head’. There was literally no stop to the action and, count ’em, a total of FIVE deaths, all of which are really going to shake things up!

And really, this episode put the kids to bed and let the real stars shine: Fiona, Myrtle, Delia, LaLaurie (well, her head anyways) and Laveau all stole the show in this one and it was totally fun and entertaining watching these older women getting most of the screen time!

And now my review…

Ditch the Witch Inc.

The episode starts us off deep in Chattahoochee National Park in 1991 where we are introduced to a little boy and his father out for a father-son hunting trip! Aww, isn’t that cute? But as we quickly learn, this boy happens to be Hank our Witch Hunter and Delia’s current husband! So apparently I was way, way, way wrong when I said Hank was irrelevant! I should have known better with this show! And, just throwing this out there, but I personally think, with Christmas on the way, that this whole intro could have been so, so, so much better. I mean, they had a crazy Santa Claus running around Briarcliff last season, so why not have Hank and his father hunting a Witch in the forest who lives in a Gingerbread Candy House, Hansel & Gretel style–just sayin’, that would have been EPIC! Candy House… MMMMMM!

Anyways, Hank and his old man are all chillin’ in the forest for a lesson about the ins and outs about having a good ole fashioned Witch hunt, when this chick shows up doing her best Oliver Twist impression:

Little Hank’s got her at gun point (with those blessed bullets we’ve heard so much about lately), but he is clearly no Carl from Walking Dead and decides to just sit there like an idiot instead of shooting the Witch (I probably would have too if I saw that thing for the first time). And just like Oliver Twist, this chick is still hungry:

She pulls her best Human Torch impression and tries to toast the little kid but Hank’s daddy ends up saving Hank–Jack Bauer style. Dad ends up pushing Hank out of the way, but gets burned in the process, and WHILE HIS ARM IS STILL ON FIRE, he proceeds to shoot and kill the Witch! Hank’s dad be pretty bad ass! And as it turns out, this is A LOT more intricate than we probably all could have ever imagined when Hank first showed up since they actually RUN an entire corporation dedicated to the eradication of Witches!

So off we go to Atlanta and back in present time where Hank is at Delphi Trust, his father’s corporation which looks… well, very academic. Was it just me or was there something oddly creepy about classical music playing in the background while Hank and some other dude have a casual conversation about taking out a Coven of Witches in North Hampton. Classic AHS!

This trip to Atlanta also provided us with some answers. A lot of answers. Hank was sent to New Orleans to get inside info from the Coven. Instead, he made an alliance with the Voodoo People which is apparently a big no-no at Delphi Trust. He also made a mess when he killed the red-headed Witch a couple of episodes back and Daddy’s company had to clean it up. Hank is like the new guy at work that clearly only got hired because he’s the boss’s son:

And somehow, after all his mistakes, the company STILL needs him! And finally, we now know who was responsible for throwing the acid in Delia’s face. Looks like Delphi Trust were the ones responsible and did so in order to ensure Delia would need Hank. Seems like a pretty dumb plan if you ask me. And the new plan is for Hank to go back to Delia, which is even dumber since she wants nothing to do with Hank. Corporate execs: always making the wrong decisions for their staff. And Hank heads back to the Coven, more on that later, but not before reciting their corporate Mission Statement:

“I am part of a Sacred Order. A soldier in a shadow war, a war that has been raging since before the time of Salem. We are a brotherhood pledged in blood, dedicated to stamping out the pestilence of Witchery on the North American continent.”

So ya, Hank being a part of Delphi Trust, a Witch-Hunting Corporation dating back to 1826, means he was A LOT more important to the overall story than I thought. Based on their motto, it seems there is war that dates back at least to 1826. Of course, a lot more bat shit crazy stuff had to go down first, starting with Myrtle.

Go With The Snow

I know a lot happened in this episode with Team Voodoo, but for me, the best moment of last night’s episode was produced by Frances Conroy, playing the now-resurrected Myrtle Snow. It was Quentin Tarantino-esque in every way (I thought of Kill Bill, the part where Bud is poisoned by the Black Mamba snake and Elle gets her eye plucked out of her head). And she simply had the best performance of the night. Just creepy, maddening stuff that blew my mind!

At the very beginning of the episode, we get a nice little bit of foreshadowing in a convo between Myrtle and Delia. Myrtle wants Delia to know that it was absolutely not her that was responsible for her vision loss. She also says that if she could pluck her own eyes out and give them to her, she would… hmmmm! Instantly, I knew someone was going to be losing an eye or two, but never could I have imagined that it would go down like this! BAT. SHIT. CRAZY.

So let’s get down to business. But first, we need something to eat. Melon, anyone?

Myrtle has invited some of her old friends back over to Witch Manor for a dinner party. Looks like the band is back together– Quentin and Pembroke have rejoined Myrtle and you will remember these two from the Witch’s Council– the same council that decided that it’d be fun to burn Myrtle at the stake:

So we get this totally ‘fake’ conversation between the three and it is absolutely GOLD! Quentin and Pembroke are obviously so full of shit with their ‘regrets’ and their ‘beauty compliments’ and Myrtle goes along with it. But little do they know, Myrtle is still a little bit pissed off about the whole being burned at the stake by her peers thing.

And straight out of a Kill Bill movie, Quentin and Pembroke slowly start to literally ‘freeze’ in their places. As it turns out, Myrtle slipped a little Monkshood in their balls: a poison that will literally turn you into a human statue! But Myrtle is not done with them yet, she needs some dessert first:

But then, the laughter stops, and Myrtle literally loses her SHIT and the results are beyond EPIC! It was so fun to watch Myrtle act this entire scene out in front of her Council members. I mean, first she entertains them, then completely loses it on them while in their paralyzed state, then she’s back to making hilarious comments about melon-ballers (“I bet you thought oh, she left the melon-baller in there, she’s growing old and forgetful”). It was a truly entertaining and fun performance to watch. And THIS:

That was just some insanely creepy stuff. But obviously we know exactly what Myrtle plans on doing with the new set of eyeballs, and I’ll give ya a hint, she’s not planning on serving them with the melonballs:

Just like she suggested earlier, she plucked out some eyeballs and gave Delia her vision back. And with the return of her vision, Delia has also apparently lost her ability to have visions. Not sure why, but I guess it makes sense since she didn’t have this power prior to losing her vision. Oh, and Myrtle disposed of Pembroke and Quentin in the most disturbing way imaginable:

Jesus Christ AHS! Cutting up body parts and putting them in buckets of acid… I thought these were Witches? Can’t they just use their powers to dispose of the bodies? Either way, two down and still three more deaths to go! This episode was fucking nuts!

BEE-lieve

Now before I get to the really, really good stuff, there was some other filler I suppose I should probably talk about since it is likely going to matter in the final four episodes.

Nan, Madison and Zoe head over to the hospital to visit Luke, Nan’s boy toy. Plus, Nan wants the D bad and Madison is all about helping her friends get laid. Oh, and Madison, while smoking in the hospital (love this chick), is wearing THIS hat for some reason:

Luke’s mom, Joan, who is back from the dead after being shot and killed by Hank and resurrected by Misty is still being a super Christian bitch and not letting Nan see Luke, so the girls barge in so Nan can talk to Luke (who is in a coma) by using her clairvoyance power. And after finally convincing crazy Christian Joan, she breaks out in song and everyone joins in. YAY! But wait, this only lasts literally 5 minutes because somehow Luke is able to communicate with God (or something along those lines) who has informed him that his mom actually murdered his father.

Yup, this show is fucked to the SUPREME! Apparently, good Christian Joan decided that she was pissed off at her husband for leaving her for another woman… but this woman was not younger or more beautiful, she just loved him for who he was and Joan is a jealous, little bitch. So she planted some bee’s in her husbands car, knowing her husband was allergic, and here are the results:

Next thing we know, Joan is pissed right off at Nan, Madison and Zoe for revealing this (even if it was her son telling Nan all about it), and she kicks them all about, which leads us to our 3rd death of the episode:

Not quite like last week’s episode of South Park when the guy ate his son for a blu-player, but it’s close enough, LOL! So not sure where this story is going next but obvs Nan is not going to be too happy about Joan killing her teen crush! Even though Nan and the other girls are going to have much, much bigger problems than Joan the Christian Bitch!

Showdown at the Voodoo Saloon

Still two more death’s to go, so you know some shit has yet to go down! Although for an episode called ‘Head‘, LaLaurie’s head didn’t really do much the entire episode. But I have to admit it was pretty freaking awesome watching her headless, handless body moving around in the cage, swatting at a fly with her one good hand, while her head was shouting from the box. It’s too bad they didn’t have her hand running around the hair salon, just like this little guy:

Because who doesn’t love Thing from The Addams Family!? Right!? Anyways, Fiona brings LaLaurie’s head back to Laveau and proposes that they form an alliance as they have bigger fish to fry. Of course, Laveau just laughs at Fiona with the best utterance of the word “SHITTTTTT” that I have ever seen on television, tells Queenie to burn the head and rejects Fiona’s proposal. Bad choice Laveau, cus apparently Witch Hunters don’t take too kindly to Voodoo Witches either!

Queenie doesn’t burn the head though since, uh, she wants to educate LaLaurie first? Whatever floats your boat, I guess. But before we get to the rest of this story, Hank the Witch Hunter pays a visit to Delia to reconcile their relationship. But he gets instantly rejected since Delia knows he’s drunk as fuck– oh, and that he’s a murdering liar. The weird thing about all of this though is that I actually think Hank wants to get back with her for the right reasons. Unfortunately for Hank though, Delia lost her powers to see inside his thoughts and has no clue so she kicks his loser ass out. And boy, it just keeps getting worse for Hank:

The Voodoo Queen doesn’t take to kindly to incompetent contractors, unlike Delphi Trust (the real world is a lot tougher when daddy isn’t protecting ya, eh Hank). And finally we get to see some authentic Voodoo Doll magic as Laveau threatens to kill Hank by putting a needle through his heart if he doesn’t take care of the ‘White Witches’. So with that, Hank has to make a decision. On the one hand, his father’s company does not want him going in guns-a-blazin’, they want intel. On the other hand, Laveau wants him to literally rain bullets on Witch Manor. Hank is pretty much fucked no matter which choice he makes. Regardless, he made the right choice because the entire final scene played out brilliantly.

Queenie leaves LaLaurie to her history lesson and some gospel music starts to play, ‘Oh Freedom!’ by The Golden Gospel Singers, as Hank enters the Voodoo Salon. It literally sent chills down my spine which is exactly what a horror story is supposed to do! I’ve included the song below, check it out:

So Hank enters in epic fashion (and yes, I maintain my admission that I am an idiot for doubting this guy had any usefulness to our story):

He literally starts shooting everything in sight. I guess we can’t really blame him either since these people did threaten to take his life if he didn’t do what they say. And unfortunately for Queenie, like Dr. John said, she is probably in the right place, just at the wrong time cus Hank shoots her right in her big, ginormous belly.

That’s not the end of it though. Hank is about to kill Laveau but misses because she is able to teleport out of the way (not sure if anyone caught that). The problem, though, is that she was only able to teleport to the other corner of the room (not sure why that happened, but it was cool). So Hank is about to finally kill Laveau, when Queenie makes the ultimate sacrifice:

She shoots herself using her Human Voodoo Doll power and kills Hank. But the catch here, she used one of Hank’s guns, and those bullets be blessed, yo! Queenie is not coming back from this. And as the episode ends we see Laveau head over to Witch Manor only this time it looks like she’s playing nice!

And a couple of other quick, minor events from the episode: FrankenKyle accidentally snapped the new guard dog’s neck by sitting on it or some shit so Fiona decided to recruit FrankenKyle as the Coven’s new guard dog and also somehow made him more functioning. I can’t even begin to explain how stupid this was. Oh, and Misty made some dead flowers come back to life. Kinda pointless stuff but it might be important later so I thought it’d be worth mentioning.

Episode Score: 9.0. The episode was AMAZE-BALLS! Only thing I didn’t really like was FrankenKyle and the whole Joan killing her son thing, but I will give every single story a chance now after seeing the end results of what happened to Hank, who started off as one of the most boring characters ever. But still, an entire point had to be deducted when Kyle sat on the dog’s neck… c’mon!

No more American Horror Story for the next FOUR FREAKING WEEKS! I have no idea what is going to fill this void over the Christmas break, but at least there is a small preview for the next episode, which will be airing in the new year on January 8th. Check out the clip for ‘The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks‘ below (that episode title says it all, doesn’t it):

And one last bit of info, it has been rumored that there will be some ‘hints’ as to where the next season of American Horror Story will be taking place, starting on Episode 11. With that in mind, I wrote an article on TV.com not too long ago about where I’d like to see the show go in future seasons and I encourage anyone interested in horror to check it out (I also included posters to illustrate my ideas). Click the link to check it out: ‘My Top 6: Where Should American Horror Story Go Next’. Enjoy!